The present invention relates generally to the field of wood chip processing, and more particularly to a machine and associated method for dense packing of wood chips for storage, transport, or further processing.
One major factor in the cost of wood chips for paper making is the cost of transporting the wood chips from the chip manufacturing site to the paper mill. The wood chips are typically transported in rail cars, but may also be transported in barges, trailers, or the like. Typically, the transportation costs are based primarily on the number of containers used to ship a given load of wood chips. Thus, the more densely containers can be packed, the lower the transportation costs for delivering a given amount of useable wood chips.
Space considerations are also relevant in the storage and processing of wood chips. For instance, the storage of wood chips on site, such as at a pulp mill, consumes space. As such, it is advantageous to have the wood chips densely packed when “stacking” the wood chips for storage.
While a number of wood chip handling techniques have been proposed in the industry, there remains a need for alternative wood chip handling techniques, particularly ones that allow for dense packing of the wood chips for storage and/or transport.